Taking Back the Life You Stole

Chapter 5

 As soon as Gerard left, Frank decided the best course of action was to just go back to bed. He developed a crook in his neck from sleeping on the couch, and he hadn't slept all that well anyway, waking up every hour or so from either pain or feeling Gerard move against his hand. He hadn't minded too much though, in a way, it was just nice to feel so close to anyone, it was the first time he felt truly safe in a pretty long time. Frank even had to admit, every time he woke up, he looked over the edge of the couch to see if Gerard was still there, and if he was still gently holding Frank's hand. Just the thought of Gerard's breath brushing over the back of his hand made Frank feel warm and safe. He smiled to himself as he made his way to his room. His ripped work jeans from yesterday were still on the floor, and he breathed a sigh of relief that the pants he was wearing currently hadn't ripped last night during the whole incident. He began to slide out of his jeans as soon as he saw that they were completely intact, leaving them in a crumpled pile on the floor. He considered putting on sweatpants, but at this point, he had completely given up caring and slid into bed in just his boxers and a T-Shirt.

He didn't mean to sleep as long as he did, but he didn't wake up until he heard Ray calling his name, announcing himself home from work. Frank rolled off his bed and pulled on a pair of jeans from his dresser, another pair of old work jeans that over time developed holes in the knees. He was about to make his way into the living room, but the knowledge of how long he had been wearing that shirt made him turn around and grab a clean band shirt from his dresser. Ray was already sitting on the couch flipping through TV channels when Frank finally made it out of his room.

"How're the knees?" Ray asked without even looking up at Frank.

Frank looked down at his own legs. The holes in his jeans were creating little windows to look at the gauzed taped to his skin behind them. "I mean, I'm walking fine. So that's something." He shrugged as he sat down next to Ray on the couch.

Ray turned to look at Frank, "and your foot?"

Frank had to admit, he actually kind of forgot about it in the chaos of last night. He lifted his foot into his lap to examine the puffy red skin. It looked painful, but definitely not infected. "Looks fine to me." He lowered his foot back to the ground before Ray could look over and give his own opinion. Frank settled into staring blankly at the TV as Ray continued to scroll aimlessly through the channels. This was how they spent a lot of their evenings together, which was really calming to Frank since he wasn't always in the headspace to make conversation, and Ray understood that. Just being around someone was nice, he had spent so many years feeling alone, it was just nice to feel at peace in a shared space. Frank didn't much care what was on the TV either, the more mindless it was, the easier it was to just zone out for hours on end, that's why whenever Frank got a hold of the remote, it usually ended up on some type of cartoon. Ray, on the other hand, actually liked to get stuff out of the content he consumed, but his short attention span made him change the channel every few minutes.

Tonight, they probably spent close to 4 hours like this, just sitting on the couch, complacent in just silent company. Frank took occasional smoke breaks, today making sure to actually put shoes on when he wandered outside and specifically going to the side of the building that was opposite that shitty alley. It was just past 9 when Frank's phone that had been laying on the coffee table began to ring, something it had done so seldom in the past few years it startled him. He and Ray stared at it for a few seconds in confusion before he snapped out of the shock and picked it up off the table. He stood and began making his way to the hallway as he flipped the phone open and answered with a tentative, "Hello?"

It was Gerard's voice nervously coming through the other line, shaking as he said "Frank? It's Gerard."

Frank immediately turned from confused to scared. "Yeah, this is Frank, what's going on?"